Sep 14, 2024 // RSS feed is live! And how to use it if you never have.

Howdy! You may have heard that the social media site cohost is sadly shutting down. I might have more thoughts to write on it later. In response for now though, I've finally put in the work to make some backend updates to this site and get an RSS feed in place! You can now subscribe with whatever RSS reader you like and get updates on my posts!

Don't know what RSS is or if you should use it? I think you should give it a chance, and I'll show you how as simple and briefly as possible!

What is RSS?

RSS is a super simple way of subscribing to updates for websites. With the world of social media becoming less and less stable, old school internet is becoming more popular. Hosting your own website gives you a lot of control over what you get to do, and you are less limited than you would be on most social media platforms. RSS lets you keep track of what everyone is doing out there, and lets you remember that it all exists in the first place!

How do I use it?

I really like fraidycat. It's a cute and simple RSS reader. All you gotta do is go to the site, download the extension from your browser of choice, and start adding feeds. You can add an RSS feed by finding the "RSS" button or link somewhere on the site (usually on the blogs).

It might take you to a page with a bunch of text, you can ignore that. Copy the URL of the page, add it to your reader, and that's it! You're now subscribed and will get updates whenever there is a new post on the site. The fraidycat extension also has a nice feature where you can just click the extension button in your browser when you're on a site that has an RSS feed, and it will auto-detect and add the feed. ez pz

It's nice, it's simple, and there's genuinely so many cool sites out there. Just go on neocities and explore, it's kinda wild.

Also, if you want an RSS reader that's a bit more fully featured, check out feeder.co. It has apps for mobile, and it lets you read the articles in the app itself! Pretty snazzy.

Final thoughts

I think it's great that there's a growing movement of personal websites, and I want to be a part of it. Social media has its place, but there are a lot of issues to contend with. Sometimes it's nice to just have a place to exist that's yours, and it's nice to subscribe to other people's spaces to check in every once in a while. I hope you think so too and give it a shot!